that nothing could ever wake me during the night. And yet
somehow on that particular night, whether it may have been the slight
excitement produced by my little adventure or not I know not, but
I slept much more lightly than usual. Half in my dreams I was dimly
conscious that something was going on in the room, and gradually became
aware that my wife had dressed herself and was slipping on her mantle
and her bonnet. My lips were parted to murmur out some sleepy words of
surprise or remonstrance at this untimely preparation, when suddenly my
half-opened eyes fell upon her face, illuminated by the candle-light,
and astonishment held me dumb. She wore an expression such as I had
never seen before--such as I should have thought her incapable of
assuming. She was deadly pale and breathing fast, glancing furtively
towards the bed as she fastened her mantle, to see if she had disturbed
me. Then, thinking that I was still asleep, she slipped noiselessly from
the room, and an instant later I heard a sharp creaking which could only
come from the hinges of the front door. I sat up in bed and rapped my
knuckles against the rail to make certain that I was truly awake. Then
I took my watch from under the pillow. It was three in the morning. What
on this earth could my wife be doing out on the country road at three in
the morning?

"I had sat for about twenty minutes turning the thing over in my mind
and trying to find some possible explanation. The more I thought, the
more extraordinary and inexplicable did it appear. I was still puzzling
over it when I heard the door gently close again, and her footsteps
coming up the stairs.

"'Where in the world have you been, Effie?' I asked as she entered.

"She gave a violent start and a kind of gasping cry when I spoke, and
that cry and start troubled me more than all the rest, for there was
something indescribably guilty about them. My wife had always been
a woman of a frank, open nature, and it gave me a chill to see her
slinking into her own room, and crying out and wincing when her own
husband spoke to her.

"'You awake, Jack!' she cried, with a nervous laugh. 'Why, I thought
that nothing could awake you.'

"'Where have you been?' I asked, more sternly.

"'I don't wonder that you are surprised,' said she, and I could see that
her fingers were trembling as she undid the fastenings of her mantle.
'Why, I never remember having done such a thing in my life before. The
fact is that I fe